Today's cellular networks are implemented in large part by placing high power radios on top of towers to cover a broad geographic territory using licensed spectrum. However, deploying new towers is time consuming and expensive. There are congestion points including how much of the spectrum is used for each sector and how many devices can be simultaneously attached to a single tower at a time. Coverage is fixed and limited to how far the radio can transmit/receive, typically a small number of miles. Additionally, coverage is affected by buildings, trees, mountains, weather or other impediments to the radio signal. Thus the addition of coverage or capacity involves expensive options of either adding more site density or acquiring more spectrum (which involves expensive equipment deployments as well). Lack of capacity results in end users suffering from lower performance or the inability to use applications like high definition video, voice over LTE, etc.). Also, lack of capacity may impact battery life/power consumption in IoT devices which may attempt to retransmit due to congestion thereby unnecessarily consuming power.
Existing solutions to solving the added capacity problems include the use of microcells which are small versions of radio towers that are typically fixed equipment on homes or businesses and can carry traffic and operate to increase capacity/performance without having to install new towers or buy new spectrum. Another approach is the use of public/private WiFi, for example using home-based unlicensed WiFi that includes a channel that is open to public consumption alongside the one for the homeowner. Applications have also been developed that enable peer-to-peer mobile Internet connection sharing with faster and more efficient data transmissions by automatically and actively choosing and switching to the best available network without requiring users to manually search available networks to find the best one available. With those applications a user can send a message and if not in wireless coverage but in range of other devices with an application client, it will use short-range radio technology (e.g. Bluetooth) to pass the message along until it has a path out to the internet—or can be delivered peer-to-peer to another user in the mesh. Another approach is to provide femtocell capability to devices within the communications network. A non-femto enabled device and/or a femto enabled device can communicate with a femto enabled device in the same geographical area for femto-enabled peer-to-peer communication. Two non-femto enabled devices can be provided femto functionality through utilization of a femto enabled device, which operates as a hub between the two devices. Other aspects relate to enhanced position determination, adaptive coverage enhancement, local mobile networks, open access femtocells without a backhaul, and local broadcast of media though utilization of femto enabled devices.